


pray for us sinners

by eggosandxmen



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Post-Canon, Religion, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 01:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19241149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggosandxmen/pseuds/eggosandxmen
Summary: Helena and Sarah and God.





	pray for us sinners

**Author's Note:**

> I had a religious crisis last night so y’all know what this is!

Sarah knows something’s wrong when Helena doesn’t call.

It’s Sunday. Helena has never missed a Sunday. 

Sarah grabs her jacket and kisses Kira on the head and runs out the door. Sarah walks out the door and shivers and blinks away the frost of the winter from her eyes. Sarah goes down to Helena’s apartment, and Sarah knocks on the door, loudly, waiting for the telltale snap of locks coming undone. It slides open- slowly slowly slowly, it creaks open, and-

Little Donnie, eyes wide, throws open the door and wraps himself around Sarah.

“Auntie Sarah,” he says, and oh, he’s wailing- “Auntie Sarah, Mama won't come out.”

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

Sarah cups Donnie’s head in her hand and tries to keep him from bawling, then proceeds to fail. Sarah picks up Donnie and puts him down on the couch, says _watch some TV with your brother-_ because there’s Art, wrapped in a blanket, resolutely ignoring the double-locked door behind him. Helena’s bedroom.

Sarah sighs, and drops her jacket, and knocks softly.

“Meathead, open up.”

It takes five agonizing minutes of increasingly panicked knocking, but she hears a noise in the room (that means she’s not dead, that means she’s not gone)-

Helena opens the door and pulls Sarah in before either of the boys can run over, and closes the door behind her, and then it’s just the two of them in the dark.

After Sarah’s eyes adjust, she takes in the state of her sister. Helena is wide eyed, folded in herself, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, blood under her nails.

And then she’s wrapping herself around Sarah, knocking their foreheads together, and Sarah’s got her arms around Helena’s bare back, and her hands are suddenly wet, and-

Oh. It’s one of those days.

Sarah pulls the two of them over into Helena’s bed and sits them both down and lets Helena hold onto her for a few more seconds before pulling away, grabbing onto Helena’s shoulders with her red hands, and saying “What happened, Helena.” 

(What happened is this: Helena was angry at God.

What happened: Helena prayed the rosary three times, while she made the boys dinner. She prayed it three times and the boys sat down and she kissed Art on the head and said she’d be right back, eat without her.

What happened: she locked her room tight and she prayed and screamed and raged, and her rosary tumbled out of her hands, and then-

Well. You know this story.)

Sarah knows this story. Sarah grabs for Helena’s hands again, and Sarah says _Helena._

And Helena-

Helena is not crying. Helena is shaking. Helena picks up something off the door and Helena presses her rosary into Sarah’s hand and that-

That is all Sarah needs to know.

Helena is many things; Judas, Saint Micheal, Joan of Arc. Sarah, too: Jesus, Saint Gabriel, Saint Anne. Sarah was never one to believe in God, but Sarah knows the stories, and Sarah knows Helena knows the stories, and she’s angry with them, and-

Helena, from across from Sarah, speaks. Helena, across from Sarah, says _Nash batʹko, yaki ye na nebesakh, nekhay bude im'ya tvoye-_

Sarah clutches the rosary in the dark, and Helena keeps reciting, and Sarah crumpled onto Helena’s chest, still holding the bloody necklace, finds Helena’s heartbeat on the unholy side of her chest, and they stay like that, Helena shaking and shaking, and Helena grasping the rosary in Sarah’s fingers until they’re holding hands, fingers tangled in the beads.

Sarah rubs her thumb on the back of Helena’s hand, and neither of them move besides that, and the boys’ television goes on and on in the background, in time to Helena’s muttered praying.

**Author's Note:**

> Helena! Take all my religious trauma! Go! Run with it!


End file.
